Catalogue

Miscellaneous documents

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• Miscellaneous documents
  • Fell family of Uxbridge, Middlesex (Ref: D/X 1667/3/1)
  • Fox family of Falmouth (Ref: D/X 1667/4/1-3)
  • Fry of Woodburn (Ref: D/X 1667/5/1-3)
  • Sophia Fry (nee Pease) (1837 - 1897) (Ref: D/X 1667/5/1)
  • Sir Theodore Fry (1836 - 1912) (Ref: D/X 1667/5/2-3)
  • Jonathan Edward Hodgkin (1875 - 1953) (Ref: D/X 1667/6/1-2)
  • Jonathan Backhouse Hodgkin (1843 - 1926) (Ref: D/X 1667/6/3)
  • Sarah Charlotte Hodgkin (nee Pease) (1858 - 1929) (Ref: D/X 1667/6/4-5)
  • Thomas Hodgkin (1831 - 1913) (Ref: D/X 1667/6/6)
  • Rowntree Family (Ref: D/X 1667/9/1)

Catalogue Description

These archives were offered at auction by Tennants of Leyburn, North Yorkshire, in the autumn of 2008. The collection had been split up by the auctioneers into lots and, as a consequence, Durham County Record Office was not able to secure the complete collection of papers offered for sale at that time. The collection was purchased in 5 lots on 29 September 2008 and in 3 lots on 10 December 2008, with the assistance of grant aid from the Friends of Durham County Record Office.

A further 30 lots were sold to other bidders on 29 September 2008, the most significant of which was described as railway ephemera, but which also contained correspondence. Most of the other lots included scrapbooks, photographs and histories of the families which constituted the Quaker network in the North of England. These items may have made it easier to establish the interconnection of the individuals represented in these papers.

By cataloguing the items in detail, knowledge of the inter-marriages of the Quaker families of the North of England was established, to explain the presence of this particular set of papers which had belonged to the Backhouse, Coates, Fell, Fox, Fryer, Hodgkin, Lloyd, Mounsey and Pease families.

The most significant papers are those belonging to Henry Pease (1807-1881), son of Edward Pease (1767-1858), as these include an album of letters received by Henry Pease from the eminent men of the 19th century [Ref: D/X 1667/8/129], 12 letters from John Bright (1811-1889) [ref: D/X 1667/8/134-145] and 47 letters from his father, Edward [ref: D/X 1667/8/182-229].

The latter letters include discussions of railway and wool business, a description of the death of Edward's wife Rachel nee Whitwell [ref: D/X 1667/8/189], the decline in health and death of his elder son, Edward [ref: D/X 1667/8/214-219] and the decline in health and death of Anna Fell Pease [ref: D/X 1667/8/208-822]. Henry Pease's papers also include 17 letters from his brother, Joseph (1799-1872) including discussions of railway business, the death of his brother, Edward [ref: D/X 1667/8/243] and a description of scenes in London on the occasion of the coronation of Queen Victoria [ref: D/X 1667/8/242].

The papers described in this catalogue represent varying numbers of the papers of:
* Henry Pease's second son, Edward Lloyd Pease (1861-1934);
* Edward Lloyd Pease's wife, Helen Blanche Pease (1865-1951);
* Helen Blanche Pease's father, Joseph Whitwell Pease (1828-1903)

Edward and Blanche's daughter, Mary Cecilia Pease married Reginald J. Mounsey in 1921 and a few records of them and their children are in the papers under consideration. Because of the marriage of Mary Ceclia and Reginald, the collection includes papers of the Backhouse, Mounsey and Coates families. Reginald was the son of Edward Backhouse Mounsey and Rachel Anne Fryer.

The Backhouse papers include records of the ownership of Belmont Colliery [ref: D/X 1667/1/26 - 1/35]; Fatfield Colliery [ref: D/X 1667/1/36 - 1/38]; Shincliffe Colliery [ref: D/X 1667/1/39].

The Mounsey papers include records of North Bitchburn Colliery [ref: D/X 1667/7/138 - 143] and of Hetton Colliery [ref: D/X 1667/7/144 - 162], among the papers of John Mounsey, father of Edward Backhouse Mounsey.

The Mounsey papers also include photographs of places in the North East of England, Ireland and Scotland, taken by Edward Backhouse Mounsey in the 1860s to 1880s [ref: D/X 1667/7/15 - 7/64]. The Wallis Collection, also held in the Durham County Record Office, contains photographs taken by Edward Backhouse Mounsey [ref: D/Wa 3/6/1 - 59].

Edward Backhouse Mounsey married Rachel Anne Fryer of Smelt House, the daughter of Joseph Jowitt Fryer and Rachel, nee Coates. The Coates and Fryer records in the collection consist almost completely of early ambrotype portraits of members of those families taken in the 1850s and 1860s at Smelt House, Howden le Wear, the ancestral home of the Coates family and at Toothill Grove, Rastrick, near Brighouse, Leeds, Yorkshire, the ancestral home of the Fryer family.

Two short diaries kept by children in the early years of the nineteenth century are of interest. Thomas James Backhouse (1807-1857) kept, or, rather, had kept on his behalf, 'A Journal' of a 'Tour from Sunniside to Burrows by North Shields etc' on two days, 11 and 12 July 1817 [ref: D/X 1667/1/56]. Mary Pease, nee Lloyd (1826-1909), the second wife of Henry Pease (1807-1881) kept a journal between 1 January and 19 July 1840, when she was aged 14, describing life at Wood Green, Wednesby, Staffordshire with her 9 siblings, mother and father, Samuel and Sarah Lloyd, grandparents Samuel and Rachel Lloyd, at The farm; and various cousins and uncles [ref: D/X 1667/8/349]. The daily round of a Quaker household is described, as is a summer holiday in Aberdovey, Merionethshire, Wales. The diary is dated by the ½ day holiday the winter enjoyed on the occasion of the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert on 10 February 1840.

Although it is possible to determine the family connections which explain the presence of the documents in the collection, their original archival arrangement had been disturbed by their being divided into lots, reflecting only the need to make each lot attractive to a potential buyer, and it was impossible to return the documents to that original arrangement. It was therefore decided to list the documents according to the individual who possessed them. As an example, letters written by Edward Pease are listed as the papers of their recipients, Henry Pease, not those of their originator, Edward Pease.

The individuals are then listed alphabetically by family and then alphabetically within each family group.

Items which cannot be attributed with any confidence to an individual have been listed at the end of the catalogue. Two letters have been listed as Miscellaneous family items [ref: D/X 1667/10/1- 2].

All the other items which cannot be attributed with confidence to individuals in the 10 family groups identified in the catalogue, have been divided topographically into records relating to Darlington [ref: D/X 1667/11/1-50]; records relating to places in County Durham [ref: D/X 1667/12/1-19]; records relating to places out of county [ref: D/X 1667/13/1-51]. Finally unidentified photographs have been put in the final Miscellaneous section [ref: D/X 1667/14/1-15].

The section containing papers relating to Darlington includes a plan of Rev. Mr. Sisson's estate in Darlington, 1776 [ref: D/X 1667/14/1] and a series of plans of property in Darlington belonging to members of the Society of Friends in 1848 [ref: D/X 1667/11/4-22]. The plans are numbered and it is evident that nos. 4-6, 16-18, are missing.

Also included in this section are the records of the Darlington Society of Friends' Book Society, 1851-1905 [ref: D/X 1667/11/26-28].

The papers relating to places out-county include polemics concerning the beliefs of Quakers [ref: D/X 1667/13/1 and 13/8]. Also of interest is a description of Richard Trevethick driving a steam carriage along roads in Cornwall and Devon in 1802 [ref: D/X 1667/13/3] and a broadside recounting the activities of Mary, wife of Henry Gurney, of Norfolk, who eloped with her footman [ref: D/X 1667/13/20]. Agitation against the slave trade is reflected in an envelope depicting the mistreatment of slaves [ref: D/X 1667/13/26] and a cutting from a newspaper published in Washington D.C., U.S.A., advertising 'negroes' for sale [ref: D/X 1667/13/51].

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